Igby Rigney on the ‘Terrifying’ Story Behind His ‘Midnight Club’ Role
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Igby Rigney doesn't want to reveal how old he actually is. But after teaming up with modern horror writer/director/producer extraordinaire Mike Flanagan to play the high school-aged Warren Flynn in last year's blood-sucking Midnight Mass and reuniting this year to play 18-year-old terminally ill Kevin in Midnight Club, it's clear that he's nowhere near old enough to have any semblance of a memory of the 1994 setting in which Midnight Club takes place. So, it's worth wondering—what's a modern-age kid's frame of reference for the '90s anyway?
"I had a DiscMan, so I still remember all that stuff," he says, explaining that while he wasn't born in the '90s, his older cousins all were, and his parents remain Luddites stuck in (or close to) the '90s. "So I still remember the Nintendo 64 and the Atari and all of that stuff. I felt very comfortable in that time period because it reminded me of growing up."
The 1994 setting is key to The Midnight Club, which marks Flanagan's first foray into quasi-YA storytelling, and is based on the Christopher Pike book of the same name (first published in, you guessed it, 1994). Focusing on a group of teenagers unfortunately diagnosed with terminal illnesses, Midnight Club isn't a Fault in Our Stars-esque tearjerker—instead, it's closer to a Stranger Things or Buffy The Vampire Slayer with the self-contained mini-stories of a Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark stuffed within. The teens in the show are sick, but the key is that they don't let it define them—and look for scary stories to keep them busy otherwise.
Rigney is one of a handful of Midnight Club cast members who has worked with Flanagan before—the others including Samantha Sloyan, Matt Biedel, Robert Longstreet, and Zach Gilford—and is thrilled that he continues to get asked back. "I think the tone of all of his projects is very unique, and his writing is very intentional," Rigney says. "What's so wonderful about his work is that every project says something, and it's always something different."
He's also recently wrapped filming on Flanagan's next project, The Fall of the House of Usher, which is likely to hit Netflix around this time next year. That one remains shrouded in mystery, though we know that it's based on the story of the same name—and others—by the legendary Edgar Allan Poe.
Men's Health spoke with Rigney about jumping back in time The Midnight Club, playing a serial killer, and what kind of influence the '90s wound up having on him.
MH: What was your favorite part about filming The Midnight Club and being a kid from 1994 instead of a kid from 2022?
IGBY RIGNEY: Honestly, I think it's so beautiful that all of our connection and our communication is done face to face. There's no texting. A lot of teen shows now, they've got the text bubbles that pop up on the screen. There's no opportunity for that. So you actually get to see these kids interact in real life.
You've now done three projects with Mike Flanagan, counting next year's Fall of the House of Usher. How did you first link up with him? How did you make that connection?
It was through a self-tape that I thought had gone terribly wrong, and I sent it in and I had no hope. And low and behold, Mike was gracious enough to give me a call and give me a shot, and it just kind of kept rolling from there.
Were you always a horror fan? Because now that you've done a bunch of projects in the genre, you'll probably always be associated with it.
No, I was never a horror fan and not because I don't like it, I'm just too scared. It completely freaks me out. I'm very slowly starting to get over that.
I talked to your Midnight Mass co-stars Rahul Kohli and Hamish Linklater last year and both of them had the exact same answer: they appreciate it, but were just too scared to ever really get into it.
I think a little bit of terror is warranted for the genre.
What was the most important part of playing someone with a terminal illness?
Respect was the most important part. And I think it's something you have to be very aware of, because it's not an experience that, thankfully, I have gone through, and from my research is a very terrifying thing to go through. I wanted to make sure that I did that with as much respect as possible.
I think Mike's writing really helped with that, because you got to see these kids as young adults who are just trying to have fun and they just want to be kids—and then they're burdened with this little extra thing of unfortunately being terminally ill.
I'm curious how you balanced the show's supernatural horror with the very real horrors of something like a loved one getting sick or learning to love somebody before then losing them.
I think the way these kids are expressing that fear is through these stories, and that's why a lot of them are scary stories. A member of the club says we generally try to scare the out of each other, which is so hard to do because they're in such a terrible position anyway. So I think using storytelling as a vent for fear is how they're trying to get through it.
Is there anything you do mentally for your own ritual or your own process as far as snapping in and out of the scary stuff and getting back to your regular 2022 life?
I think the snapping out of it part is really the tough part, because you get on set and the production design and costumes have done such a wonderful job of getting you, I mean, right into this space where I don't have to pretend I'm in this room; this room is really here. I'm really looking at my friend on the floor, she's really vomiting in front of me. It's not a hard thing to get into, but getting out of it and being able to drop it at the end of the day is definitely a little tougher.
Your character, Kevin, is telling his story within the Midnight Club about Dusty, a serial killer—whom you also play. How did you go about preparing for that?
Honestly, the hardest part was how real they made it feel. I did a little bit of research about how meticulous and what kind of routines somebody like that might have. I remember I really wanted to tape the black leather gloves that my character wears, I wanted to tape them to the end of my sleeve so I wasn't shedding skin cells through the open bit of fabric. I was thinking about, "This is a killer that's been working for years and years and years. How has he not left at any evidence?" And that's a huge question mark for the story.
Honestly, they did such a good job of making the whole scenario feel real. And I wasn't hitting people, but I was hitting objects that were bleeding afterwards, which was ... That was terrifying. It was terrifying to know that I had the strength to whack something that hard.
So it wasn't a prop hammer, it was a real hammer that you were using.
Yeah, it was a real hammer.
The power of practical effects!
Absolutely, yeah.
What's the key to bouncing back and forth between playing a serial killer, and playing a Boy Next Door-type—often in the same hour of television?
I think the key was that... What's a good way to put this? Dusty is a manifestation of Kevin's fear and insecurity going through his experience. And he's terrified that he's hurting the people around him. So Dusty and Kevin are, they're not one in the same, but they grow out of each other. I think really just keeping in mind both people, while I was playing either one. I was both Dusty and Kevin at all times.
Were you ever actually scared on set when the camera was or wasn't rolling?
Yeah, the library in the firelight is genuinely terrifying. You can't see those upper corners. Sometimes there'd be crew members up there and they move suddenly. That was a real freak show.
You said you don't really love horror stuff, but did you go back and watch any other horror movies or shows to sort of prep for your character, whether it's Kevin or any of the characters within the story, just to get any inspiration?
No, I chickened out. Mike sent us this whole list that I have yet to start, but I'm getting better. I went to go see, oh geez, what is it? There was this movie I went to go see. It's about a lady who goes to an Airbnb, and there's this two people living in the tunnels underneath her house. Do you know what that was?
Barbarian?
Yes, Barbarian!
It's on my list. I haven't gotten to see it yet.
Oh my God, it's—
Good?
It's very good. And it's very funny in parts, which was very completely unexpected.
I saw Mike said over the weekend that Midnight Club was designed with Season 2 in mind, but I know he's sort always got a lot of stuff going on. Have you heard anything about a Season 2?
I have not heard anything from anyone with authority, but I've seen a lot of fan comments. So hopefully if there's enough support, there will be one.
Any thoughts on what would be in such a season?
I'm really just hoping that Dr. Stanton will come down to the Midnight Club and tell a story. I think that would be so cool to see in the next season.
What about Kevin and Ilonka—where do you see that story going?
I think there's still stuff to explore with the shared things that they're both seeing, that the rest of the club isn't. So I think that would definitely be part of Season 2. And then just the acceptance of the burgeoning romance that is potentially happening.
We talked a little bit about the '90s thing. What are some of your '90s favorites? Favorite music, favorite movies, favorite books from the '90s?
I started listening to a ton of grunge and actually I think this was kind of after the '90s, unfortunately, but I started listening to Smashing Pumpkins a lot again.
Great choice.
That was a throwback.
What can you tell us about The Fall of the House of the Usher?
I would say that it's in some ways similar to Midnight Club, where Mike is taking inspiration from a collection of stories and building them into one narrative. So I think it's going to be really cool to see him do that again. It's probably going to be the craziest thing you'll ever see.
The Mike Flanagan-verse will continue. But it really seems like what I've seen of that cast, everybody's coming back. The whole crew.
Yeah, yeah. No, he really wanted to bring the whole family together and flop them into an insane story.
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